


ladies & gentlemen

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, First Kiss, M/M, Songfic, i could not tag this if i tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She then takes a thick black band off of her wrist and positions it over her fingers like the trigger of a gun. “It’s like a rubber band.”Her voice echoes between his ears, untethered and traveling back and forth, dizzying him. He nods, eyes wide.“Keep stretching it and at some point…""...it’ll just snap.”
Relationships: Josh Dun/Tyler Joseph
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	ladies & gentlemen

**Author's Note:**

> i know what year it is

Tyler has always hated the ocean. 

The waves were almost always too strong, and the tide was too threatening. Standing on the beach with his skin touching the sand he wonders how quickly he could be swallowed whole. Or just maybe how much time it would take to wade in and let his legs buckle under him. It’s something he can’t control and, yeah, he thinks, he’ll always hate anything he can’t control. 

He also thinks about Josh. 

Josh. His friend Josh. His bandmate Josh. His Something- Josh. 

Thinking about Josh had become almost automatic to him lately. The different parts of his brain were always overflowing with thought and substance but ever since _before,_ all the chatter in his head can only bring Tyler back to... _him_. _Before_ when _he_ touched his skin and every thought of _her_ in every point in time ceased to exist.

“I can hear you thinking,” She says, bright and knowing from behind him. Her hands snake around his waist and settle on his abdomen innocently above his waistband. “Stop it.”

Her hands are cold but the touch is immediately soothing. Tyler wonders how long she’d been standing in the wind behind him letting herself freeze. He lets it go. “Do you have a really big fear? Like, a paralyzing one.”

She lifts her chin from its rest on his bare shoulder to think, before lowering it again, “I think losing my family is up there with spiders. Why do you ask?”

“I was just curious,” He lies, shuddering at the feeling of foam now gathering around his ankles. Josh would’ve answered seriously. Josh would've touched his skin to light him on fire, to maybe dislocate the commotion--

“Another one of my fears is missing dinner,” She breathes out quickly and heavily, almost like a laugh meant for Tyler’s ears and not her mouth. Her hands wrap around his wrists and tug away, away, away until they're facing each other and moving together. 

“I know you like the beach and I know you like being alone with your thoughts.” Jenna huffs. Her arms stiffen, locking Tyler’s into a makeshift pair of handcuffs. “But your mom, and your dad, and my mom, and my dad…”

“I know,”

“Grand,” She drops his wrists and kisses him hard. “Race you to the house.”

_____

Tyler doesn't remember when everything changed. 

He supposes it was after that vacation. The vacation at the beach when she was all over him like wet sand on wet skin? When she kissed him by the ocean and all he could do was lie to her?

Or maybe it was the moment he and Josh locked eyes for the very first time. 

There weren't sparks or fireworks, and it didn't feel like coming home quite yet. It felt like finding a lost puzzle piece in your couch cushions. It felt like a gear falling into place before it inevitably started the machine again. 

“I have another question.”

Jenna’s thumbs come to a stop from where she’s typing on her phone. The screen casts white light on her face before she clicks the lock button, bathing them both in shadow and the pink light of Tyler’s roommate’s TV. “Yes, I actually am hungry.”

Tyler laughs for just a second before his nerves clamp his jaw shut. His heart hops in a racecar and starts doing laps. “Do you have a best friend?”

Jenna pauses, turning right-side-up from where she once was dangling upside down on the couch. “I hope this isn’t a trick question.”

“It’s not.” Tyler notices her discomfort immediately and presses two fingertips to the inside of her elbow. “You don’t have to say it’s me.”

“A girl named Jamie went to my elementary school.” She makes that face again. The one where it looks like she’s uncomfortably grieving. “We met when we were really young and went all the way through high school together,” The hem of Jenna’s t-shirt finds its way into her hands. “We were...inseparable? We wouldn’t do anything without each other.”

“What happened?”

Jenna’s sigh shakes her shoulders and Tyler feels it squeeze around his heart. 

“She told me she loved me, like, in more than a best friend way.”

Tyler’s heart hits a brick wall.

“And it’s not her fault that she felt that way, but I- obviously- didn’t feel the same, so she applied to a college out west and I haven’t seen her since. You could say I broke her heart, I guess.”

Frozen in place, all Tyler can feel is Jenna’s socked foot press into his calf. Her leg extends from the other end of the couch and he wishes he could sink into the armrest. “I’m sorry,” He whispers.

“Mhm,” 

In a hushed voice, Tyler fights through the knot in his throat again, “Why do you think she even told you?”

Jenna squints, smiling like a thought had just come to her that she’d lost. She then takes a thick black band off of her wrist and positions it over her fingers like the trigger of a gun. “It’s like a rubber band.” 

Her voice echoes between his ears, untethered and traveling back and forth, dizzying him. He nods, eyes wide.

“Keep stretching it and at some point…” She aims at the coffee table, at an empty Pepsi can sitting lazily on a coaster, before her thumb breaks the tension.

“...it’ll just snap.”

Tyler’s eyes close after a while. “I think I’m the gun.”

Jenna smiles like she knows. “I think you're the gun.”

_____

“I think I know just about everything about you.”

Josh’s fingers tap on the steering wheel to the beat of a terrible nineties song on the radio, and he nods in a nonchalant way. “I’d say so.”

Tyler wiggles his own fingers from where they're extended out the window. The air is crisp and clean and the sky is blue and there are heavy clouds that sit on the horizon like birds on telephone wires.

“Like I know your favorite ice cream flavor.”

“It’s vanilla, so I think that’s an easy one.”

Tyler turns to face the driver’s seat, his eyes searching for Josh’s behind his dark sunglasses. “That’s not the point. The point is that I knew it was vanilla. And not many people would care that you order your sundaes plain with sprinkles.”

Josh fights the soft laugh that bursts from his chest, keeping his focus on shifting into 'park' and being in-between the white lines. “You know what you're right, Tyler.” 

“When am I ever not.”

“Oh never ever.”

Tyler’s focus shifts when Josh’s sunglasses find their way onto the dashboard, sitting upright like another set of eyes. His hands are laying limp against his thighs while Josh’s are messing with the radio. He stops tinkering with the dials when a softer song starts filtering through the speakers. It’s another terrible nineties song. 

_All I want in life's a little bit of love, to take the pain away_

Tyler is suddenly very aware of his surroundings and his mind when the volume is turned down. Josh’s car is small and cozy, the sky is getting darker with the presence of heavier and heavier rain clouds, and Josh is humming along with the music. 

_Getting strong today, A giant step each day_

Josh is humming along with the music and his fingers are softly combing through his hair when he turns to face Tyler. Their bodies are twisted in their seats just enough to notice a shift in the air. Josh echoes Tyler when he says, “I know just about everything about you.”

_I've been told, "only fools rush in"_

Tyler’s hands start to stiffen on his lap. “We have the same favorite flavor of ice cream.”

“I know that your favorite dessert isn't even ice cream,” Josh breathes out a quick faux laugh through the smile on his face, “And I know you’ll do anything to avoid things you don’t really like.”

_But I don't believe, I don't believe_

“I’m…” Tyler picks at his jeans, searching Josh’s eyes for tricks. “...I’m particular.” 

“You're exhausting.” 

“You're boring.”

Josh squeezes his eyes shut before laughing again, “You're stubborn!”

Tyler’s hands grip tighter on denim seams. He turns towards the open passenger window and the clean air and gulps it down by the lungful, “Your heart's too big for your own good!”

“But you’re lovable.”

_I could still fall in love with you_

Tyler’s head whips back around to stare viciously and open-mouthed at Josh again.

“And you’re caring. And you know me better than I know myself. You know my next move before I do. Because we have…” Josh struggles with his words, “A connection. We’re something.”

_I will love you till I die, and I will love you all the time_

Tyler’s voice drops to just barely above a whisper before he can help it. He feels warm and cold at the same time. He feels like both taps are on at full blast and he can't tell the difference between the hot and cold water spewing angrily from the faucet. He breathlessly settles on, “Yeah we are. Something.”

Josh nods, “We’re something good.”

_So please put your sweet hand in mine_

Tyler’s mind flickers to his last memory of Jenna, knowing it’s the last time he’ll ever think about what they were. “Mhm.”

_And float in space and drift in time_

After minutes of thick silence, when water droplets start blurring the outlines of the trees through the glass and condensation coats the inside of the windshield of Josh’s old old car, Tyler finally speaks again, “I’m gonna say it out loud. Your next move.” 

_All the time until I die_

Josh nods. His hands lose grip on the steering wheel again. One of them finds an awkward arm-outstretched hold on the nape of Tyler’s neck anyway.

_We'll float in space, just you and I_

Tyler’s mind is blissfully blank for the first time in what feels like millennia, “You’re gonna look at me.”

_We'll float in space, just you and I_

Josh does. 

_And I will love you till I die_

“You're gonna kiss me.”

Josh frowns, leaning closer to the center console. Closer to Tyler. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

The rubber band snaps.

“God, I am.”

Josh does.


End file.
